It is a city of temples (they have 700 of them!) - haha, but we have maybe seen like 15 at most

We flew in yesterday afternoon and went to do the sights (read: temples). Also, we were lucky again, as apparently Sunday is a special day in Chiang Mai - with a street market at night. And when I say STREET I actually mean a good 10 streets - all around 1 big street. They were selling EVERYTHING there - and it was full of locals.

You could buy local crafts, jewellery, clothes, and of course: FOOOOODDDD. It was actually quite funny that they were selling food mostly in the courtyards of the temples . All made fresh and to order. Piles of noodles/rice, stir-fries, deep-fried stuff, seafood, fruit, sweets. Amazing. Of course we did not forget about eating while shopng/haggling. We got a great deal of food actually - I dont even remember how many little dishes we tasted . To name just a few: grilled squid, fried squid, Khao Sawy = local beef curry with funny noodles, banana-leaf packages with steamed rice and herbs, Olga ate some black vegateble jelly (?), etc etc

Speaking of which. Olga had enough courage to actually EAT the BUGS (yes, fried insects). She started with buying a big (5cm long) cricket. And yes, she had the guts to eat it too... [haha, I filmed it all, but I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait for the movie clip, as we forgot to take the camera cable]. The insect looked pretty gross, but Olga claims it was very crunchy When she ate the first one, the lady from the stall started giving her freebies - another smaller grasshopper-kind-of-thing and a white 4cm long bamboo worm... [yes, like one pf the ones from my picture in Bangkok - to be seen a few posts below]

hmhm... actually... the lady stroke a good deal giving the freebies to Olga, since she was a living advert of the bugs - in 1 min she talked an American guy into tasting one too

i promise to put the pickies & the movie clip soon

Later on we walked past another stall with bugs - where they had TERRIBLE-LOOKING huge roaches as well... [like: 7cm long and 3cm wide]. Olga even had a moment when she wanted to buy one - and if it wasn't for the saleswomen's inability to speak English she would have probably eaten it. Olga namely asked her if they were GOOD. But the woman din't understand and Olga resigned of the purchase

Still, my deep R-E-S-P-E-C-T Olga!!!

Since there were so many things to do/see/buy/eat at the market, we ended up staying till they closed - at 23.00

Today we saw a couple of temples, but above all: we took it easy - and spent the time in a relaxing manner - walking aound, stopping for food and drink etc

Tonight we're flying back to BGK. Will stay there for 2 nights (2morrow planning on going on a day trip buy train to Ayutthaya).